Downpours moved south from Alps as far as Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, causing rivers to overflow

Heavy rain and thunderstorms have caused havoc in Switzerland and northern Italy over the past week. Switzerland was badly hit on Friday 21 June, with downpours delivering more than 100mm across many areas – more than half of this within one hour.

Flash flooding and landslides swept away cars and houses, with at least one person known to have died, alongside widespread damage to transport infrastructure. The mountain resort of Zermatt was entirely cut off due to a combination of flood water, road closures and suspended train services.

Full-body swimsuits, ‘no hat, no play’ – avoiding the sun is a national pastime. At this point I’m more suncream than skin

Britain has been experiencing something of a heatwave this week, obliging me, as an Australian, to harangue its people on the subject of sun protection. I lived in the UK for 10 years, so I can broadly understand why Britons are hapless with their skincare. In Australia, the seasonal cues to cover up are well defined: in autumn, winter and spring you get sunburnt; in summer everything’s on fire and the coral dies. And you get sunburnt.

In Britain, I guess it’s difficult to muster a terror of the sun when its light is so rare that you’re trained from birth to run immediately for the nearest park, sit down and get drunk the moment a warm ray hits your face. The only thing that ever moved to Britain for the weather is mould.

Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist

Months-long fires spewed about the same amount of carbon dioxide that 647m cars put in the air in a year, data shows

Catastrophic Canadian warming-fueled wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels, setting ablaze an area of forest larger than the US state of West Virginia, new research has found.

Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland calculated how devastating the impacts of the months-long fires in Canada in 2023 that sullied the air around large parts of the globe. They figured it put 3.28bn tons (2.98 metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air, according to a study update published in Thursday’s Global Change Biology. The update is not peer-reviewed, but the original study was.

Organiser Emily Eavis says it is ‘best moment of the year’, as visitors are sprayed with water while they set up camp

Glastonbury attenders were setting up camp in sweltering temperatures as the 54th edition of the UK’s best-known festival got under way on the hottest day of the year so far.

Temperatures in the UK soared to 30C on Wednesday, and at Glastonbury music fans were sprayed with water as they made their way around the 364-hectare (900-acre) site, which opened at 8am to fans who had queued overnight.

Throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, Mike Abrahams travelled the country photographing National Front marches, prison life and people’s everyday struggles